Philip Maymin

From Noob to Smurf: Advanced

Analytics for League of Legends

Standard metrics for multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like League of Legends (LoL) are very simple: kills, deaths, and the like. Vantage Sports uses a proprietary method to generate unique metrics that are more useful for professional players. These metrics are then calculated for hundreds of thousands of amateur player games, and the results used to determine which ones most contribute to winning. Some of the most important ones are worthless deaths and smart kills, which refine the standard metrics based on whether the team overall benefited from the activity. A new player rating model described here correlates strongly with winning even though it is essentially based on just one individual's contribution to a five-on-five game.

Dr. Philip Z. Maymin is associate professor of analytics and finance at the University of Bridgeport Trefz School of Business. He is also the founding managing editor of Algorithmic Finance and the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sports Analytics. He has also been an analytics consultant with several NBA teams and is the chief analytics officer for Vantage Sports. He holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Chicago, a master's in applied mathematics from Harvard University, and a bachelor's in computer science from Harvard University. He also holds a J.D. and is an attorney-at-law admitted to practice in California. He has been a portfolio manager at Long-Term Capital Management, Ellington Management Group, and his own hedge fund, Maymin Capital Management. He has also been a policy scholar for a free market think tank, a Justice of the Peace, a Congressional candidate, and assistant professor of finance and risk engineering at the NYU School of Engineering. He has won awards for journalism, programming, and innovation, and has published two dozen academic articles, one textbook, and five other books.